WDM-compatible multimode optical switching system-on-chip

Nanophotonics

article

Hao Jia¹  Shanglin Yang²  Ting Zhou²  Sizhu Shao²  Xin Fu²  Lei Zhang²  Lin Yang² 

[1] School of Physical Science and Technology, Lanzhou University;State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences;Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

关键词: mode-division multiplexing;    optical interconnect;    optical switching devices;    silicon photonics;   

DOI  :  10.1515/nanoph-2019-0005

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: De Gruyter

【 摘 要 】

The development of optical interconnect techniques greatly expands the communication bandwidth and decreases the power consumption at the same time. It provides a prospective solution for both intra-chip and inter-chip links. Herein reported is an integrated wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)-compatible multimode optical switching system-on-chip (SoC) for large-capacity optical switching among processors. The interfaces for the input and output of the processor signals are electrical, and the on-chip data transmission and switching process are optical. It includes silicon-based microring optical modulator arrays, mode multiplexers/de-multiplexers, optical switches, microring wavelength de-multiplexers and germanium-silicon high-speed photodetectors. By introducing external multi-wavelength laser sources, the SoC achieved the function of on-chip WDM and mode-division multiplexing (MDM) hybrid-signal data transmission and switching on a standard silicon photonics platform. As a proof of concept, signals with a 25 Gbps data rate are implemented on each microring modulator of the fabricated SoC. We illustrated 25 × 3 × 2 Gbps on-chip data throughput with two-by-two multimode switching functionality through implementing three wavelength-channels and two mode-channel hybrid-multiplexed signals for each multimode transmission waveguide. The architecture of the SoC is flexible to scale, both for the number of supported processors and the data throughput. The demonstration paves the way to a large-capacity multimode optical switching SoC.

【 授权许可】

CC BY